Stylish after a fashion with black lips to veil a pink heart, she blends into the craziness around her. In a fervour, go after her boys, drenched in sweat or she will consume you completely.

Retreating, blackened and blue, an echo of what she used to be. Lipstick smeared her breasts recoil into the background, caught up in a net of anxiety,not able to break free.

“I am truly yours, if only you would set me free.”

Behind that veneer of despair, masquerading her secret, she is quietly blazing beauteous fury. Disapprove of her, drenched in sweat, if you dare.

LOST YOUTH

Sleepwalking to their early graves in front of a flickering screen. Demented youngsters awaiting their daily diet fed to them by the electric babysitter. Infantalised logic with lashings served up on noxious websites, they smile those crocodile smiles, all the while bored out of their skulls. They know the deceit of the playful rope.

Plaits in ribbons tied with fortitude, tied to the naivety of youth. Retinas burning with upside down images, they spatter dead insects onto their faces, aware of what is out there; a lid lifted and cockroaches race one another, scuttling away into darkened corners. Sweet wrappers replaced by condom wrappers, soon they will make it all start again, the merry-go-round, the millstone around their necks.

But they were my feet that stayed under the table. They were my eyes I chose to close and I turned away from the flashing screen. They were my hands that ripped the ribbons from their hair and cast them down into the gutter. It was me who took the rope and secured it around their necks. It was my mind where all of this began, when I chose to declare, “They are not my problem!”

I kept it all to myself, I kept it all to myself; everything I had to give.

I was lucky enough to be asked to write some reflective poetry for the exhibition of North East Urban Artists, November 2012. It seems the artist Stephen Irving liked what I wrote and published it on his website www.neua.co.uk